Artisan Mannerism is a style of British architecture popular between 1615 and 1675. The term was first coined by the leading British architectural historian Sir John Summerson. He described it as a development of Jacobean architecture which was the second phase of Renaissance architecture in Britain, following the Elizabethan style. ^[1] During the reign of King Charles I, the style was contemporary and parallel which the Renaissance classical architecture by Inigo Jones, which outside of Court, Church and University architecture failed to gain popularity in Britain until the final years of the 17th century. ^[2] By 1675, the style has passed from fashion. ^[3]

Artisan Mannerism principally came about due to the frequency of employing stonemasons and craftsmen, more experienced with Tudor architecture than Renaissance, to interpret a patron's wishes rather than employing a more expensive and rarely found architect. What knowledge of the Renaissance these masons did have came from the then current work of Inigo Jones, in London, and pattern books rather than familiarity with Florence and its architecture. ^[4] Therefore, drawing on a wide and eclectic range of motifs the masons' work resulted in a new hybrid style which was naive, but not unattractive new style, incorporating the classical without eschewing an array of other references. ^[5] Adapting easily from farmhouse to palace, Artisan Mannerism appealed to a wide section of British society. As an evolved architectural style, rather than Jones' suddenly introduced style, Artisan Mannerism can be considered the natural successor to the Jacobean style. ^[6]

Origins

To understand Artisan Mannerism it is necessary to look at the development of Renaissance architecture in Britain because it is really a combination of two forms of that movement in the country: The early Tudor and Jacobean form (here described as late 16th century) and the more simple, classical form of Renaissance architecture introduced by Inigo Jones in the early years of the 17th century (here described as early 17th century).

Late 16th century Renaissance in Britain

In Britain, Renaissance architecture never achieved the same popularity, classical proportions and uniformity as elsewhere in Europe. In the 15th and 16th centuries when the new movement of classical architecture was sweeping across Europe from Italy, it largely passed Britain by. However, During the reign of Henry VIII, there began a thirty-year era when English architecture was. almost grudgingly, in transition from domestic Tudor, strongly influenced by perpendicular Gothic, towards the Renaissance classical style. Perpendicular Gothic owed nothing historically to the Renaissance architecture, yet was views as harmonising well with it. ^[7] This blending of styles was mostly rendered by a small group of Italian craftsmen working at the English court in the second and third decades of the sixteenth century. They specialised in the adding of Renaissance ornament to otherwise straightforward Tudor buildings. ^[7] It was one of these, Giovanni da Maiano, who was responsible for the set of eight relief busts of Roman emperors which were set in the Tudor brickwork of Hampton Court Palace, one of the best architectural examples of this period.. ^[8]

A more discernible change towards the Renaissance style did not occur until the reign of Elizabeth I and the emergence of the Prodigy housess, described the architectural historian Sir John Summerson as: "...the most daring of all English buildings." ^[9] The houses fall within the broad style of Renaissance architecture, but represent a distinctive English take on the style, mainly reliant on books for their knowledge of developments on the Continent. This meant the quality of the interpretation of Renaissance architecture would vary immensely from the more accomplished Wollaton Hall and Longleat House both by the eminent Elizabethan architect Robert Smythson to the more provincial style of Montacute House by the Somerset mason William Arnold.

However, it is at Montacute House, built in 1588, that very early signs of Artisan Mannerism are apparent; this is in the high gables, themselves a provincial interpretation, almost a corruption, of the high curved and decorated pediments of many Italian Renaissance churches from the 1470s. <big statement this, better find something to back it up>

Montacute's design has been to attributed to the mason William Arnold. ^[10] At Montacute, Arnold decorated the late Tudor Gothic building with Renaissance motifs adapted from those illustrated in the architectural books of Sebastiano Serlio. ^[11] The usual English Renaissance mixing of styles is very obvious with typically Tudor bay windows, Gothic pinnacles adapted to be classical's obelisks, and statuary and niches between the windows. However, dominating the facade are high curved gables and pediments in the Mannerist, late Renaissance style. However, they are plain unadorned stone with rounded summits and do not have the refinement of design and proportion that would have been executed in Mannerist pediments found in Italy and France. This is because the Renaissance, when it did arrive in Britain, was via Northern Europe and the Low Countries, rather than directly from Florence. There, high gables, often known as Dutch gables, had been a feature since the 1400s.

Dutch Gables

These high curved gables are not found on every Artisan Mannerist building, but they are common enough to be considered an important feature in the history of the style. Their origin in British architecture is uncertain, first appearing in the final 15 years of the 16th century The towers at Wollaton Hall, built in 1588, have high curved pediments and it's known that Netherlandish craftsmen worked on the building, but the Wollaton curved pediments are sophisticated and decorated with Italian-French strapwork and close to the Renaissance designs by Serlio. ^[12] Whereas the curved gables at Montacute are decidedly more Dutch in appearance so are probably the result of introduction by the many Dutch and Flemmish artisans working in Britain the early years of the 17th century, Montacute's gables would have been among the last parts of the house to be completed circa 1603, so fits with this date Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page)..

Sir John Summerson, howver, offers a another theory for the common use of the Dutch gable. ^[13] He suggest that the popularity of the Dutch gable was due to the close links between the city of London, where Artisan Mannerism was born, and Amsterdam - a city which at the beginning of the 17th century was prosperous, flourishing and cultured. ^[14] The period is considered Amsterdam's Golden Age, during which it became the wealthiest city in the western world. ^[15] Amsterdam was Europe's most important point for the shipment of goods and was the leading Financial centre of the western world. ^[16] In 1602, the Amsterdam office of the international trading Dutch East India Company became the world's first stock exchange by trading in its own shares. ^[17] Therefore, it is unsurprising that British merchants returning from Amsterdam woudl wish to emulate the fashionable architecture they had seen in the city. Whatever the reason for its popularity by 1616, when Blickling Hall was built, Dutch gables were a common feature on a newly constructed English buildings.

Early 17th century Renaissance in Britain

Inigo Jones is credited with being the architect who introduced Renaissance classicism to Britain in the form of whole new classical buildings, rather than just odd features added to new, but basically Gothic architecture as described above at Montacute House and Wollaton Hall. In 1613, King James I appointed Jones to be Surveyor-General of the King's Works - court architect. In contrast to his Tudor predecessors, James I spent lavishly on buildings giving Jones the opportunity to develop his Palladian form of Renaissance architecture.Jones built some of his key buildings in London. Three years after his appointment, Jones began on the Queen's House, Greenwich, for James I's queen. When finally completed for James's son Charles I, in 1635, it was considered the first strictly classical building in England, employing ideas found in the architecture of Palladio and ancient Rome. ^[18]

Between 1619 and 1622, Jones designed the Banqueting House in the Palace of Whitehall inspired by the works of the Renaissance architects Vincenzo Scamozzi and Palladio. ^[19] The Queen's Chapel, St. James's Palace, was built between 1623 and 1627, for Charles I's Roman Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria. Parts of the design originate in the Pantheon of ancient Rome and Jones evidently intended the church to evoke the Roman temple.<find ref>

Closely associated with the extravagant court of Charles I it was seldom used outside London and fell out of fashion immediately at the fall of the royal court and Civil War in the 1640s.

Marriage of two forms

As the 17th century progressed, motifs of classical origin began to be appear so distorted as to be almost untraceable to their Renaissance origin. ^[20] An envoy of The Grand duke of Tuscany describing James I's new palace at Audley End failed to recognize the architecture of his own city describing it as "not regular, but inclined to Gothic mixed with a little of the Doric and a little of the Ionic." ^[21]

However, the curves of Caroline architecture were not true Baroque but a combination of the Renaissance ornamented Tudor architecture and Mannerism. Mannerism also known as Late Renaissance. ^{[22] [23]} was an Italian artistic movement which evolved between 1520 and 1600. The movement sought through over emphasis and distortion of perspective to represent a surreal interpretation.

Features

I

• Holboun Gable - Pediment with scrolls
• Brick for ornament and fabric
• Ballustraded balconies and pergolas above windows doorways.(Cornbury Park)
• Broken pediment with shield or tablet

EG: Kirby Hall

II

• H Plan
• Hipped Rooves
• Strong cornices
• Dormer windows

EGs:Chevening; West Woodhay, Forty Hall

III

• Giant pilasters

EGs: Lees Court Goldsmiths Hall

Nicholas stone

Caroline era

Raynham 1622

Pevsner: a provincial hybrid introducing to the county the Classicism of Inigo Jones, himself at the start of his career”. [1]

Raynham Hall is one of the most splendid of the great houses of Norfolk. After a false start in 1619 and the accumulation on site of a large quantity of Ketton stone in 1621 ^[24] it was rebegun in 1622, and by the time of Sir Roger Townshend's death in 1637 it was substantially complete, though apparently some rooms had not been fitted out, for when the architect Sir Roger Pratt saw it a few years after Townshend's death, he recalled later

Not long after it was built... I was some while in it, while it had no ornament at all... There was somewhat in it divine in the symmetry of proportions of length, height and breadth which was harmonious to the rational soul. ^[25]

Whether or not Raynham Hall was "the first of its kind in England" as the genealogist G. E. Cokayne averred, ^[26] it was certainly "one of the outstanding country houses of the period." ^[27] Perhaps because of the three-year grand tour of Europe which Sir Roger had undertaken, accompanied by his mason, ^[28] William Edge of Raynham, whom he paid in 1620 for twenty-eight weeks accompanying him "in England and out of England". ^[29] Raynham was built in an entirely new style, abandoning native tradition and following the Italian form and plan. Except for its hipped roof and Dutch gables, Raynham could easily be mistaken for a house built nearly a century later.

Kewe 1631

Kew Palace is a British royal palace in Kew Gardens on the banks of the River Thames up river from London. Originally a large complex, few elements of it survive. Dating to 1631 but built atop the undercroft of an earlier building, the main survivor is known as the Dutch House. Its royal occupation lasted from around 1728 until 1818, with a final short-lived occupation in 1844. The Dutch House is Grade I listed, ^[30] and open to visitors. It is cared for by an independent charity, Historic Royal Palaces, which receives no funding from the Government or the Crown. ^[31] Alongside the Dutch House is a part of its 18th-century service wing, whilst nearby are a former housekeeper's cottage, brewhouse and kitchen block – most of these buildings are private, though the kitchens are open to the public. These kitchens and Queen Charlotte's Cottage are also run by Historic Royal Palaces.

Broome Park 1635

The house was built between 1635 and 1638. ^[32] Originally commissioned for and occupied by Sir Basil Dixwell, 1st Baronet, who had been Member of Parliament for Hythe, it passed down through various generations of Dixwell baronets until it was inherited by Sir George Oxenden, 5th Baronet, ^[33] who took on his mother's surname of Dixwell. ^[34] It then passed down through various generations of Oxenden baronets to Sir Percy Dixwell Nowell Dixwell-Oxenden, 10th Baronet. ^[35]

Swakeleys 1640

The house was built for Sir Edmund Wright, who became Lord Mayor of London in 1640. ^[36] The brick structure dates from between 1629 and 1638. In 1629, Wright purchased the grounds from John Bingley, who had undertaken extensive remedial work on an existing 13th century structure in the grounds ^[37]—probably timber-framed and wattle filled. ^[38] Bingley's alterations were said to have been detrimental to the condition of the house and grounds. He was accused of driving away almost all the birds in the dovehouse, and of pulling up many healthy fruit-bearing trees from the orchard. ^[39] The house had a moat, which Bingley filled in, believing the water to be unhealthy, at which point he also had a defensive brick wall built around the house. ^[39]

Wiveton Hall 1652

Wiveton Hall is a country house in Wiveton, Norfolk, England. It is Grade II* listed. ^[40] It was built in 1652 and extended in 1908

Finale

Elsewhere in Europe, Mannerist curves and flourishes eventually evolved into Baroque architecture. However, with a few notable exceptions, the flamboyant European Baroque was never to the English taste and when the Style eventually did catch on in Britain it was in the form of solid mass creating chiaroscuro as exemplified by the works of Sir John Vanbrugh.

References

Notes

Citations

Citations

References

• Copplestone, Trewin (1963). World Architecture. Hamlyn.
• Mariño-Maza, Aymar. Society of Architectural Historians; Strangers in England Published Sep 03, 2019. Retrieved 06 March 2020.
• DICTIONARY OF ISMS
• Waterhouse, P.Leslie; The Story Of Architecture; Batsford, London (1950)

Things needed

• Raynham Hall Book

• Kent Archaeological Socoety - Dutch Gables

Due to the similarity of the high gables to those found in Netherlands, the style was sometimes said to be Dutch. However, it was more commonly fund in London, East Anglia and East Kent than the Netherlands at the time. ^[1]

Temporary Gallery

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